The DAC Report Has a Flag on It. What Do You Do Today?
ON THIS PAGE8 sections
- What does “not eligible for rehire” actually prove?
- Why is the DAC report thin, blank, or flatly contradicted by the driver?
- What does federal law actually let you do with a flagged report?
- How do you work a flagged DAC report, step by step?
- Two ways the same file gets closed
- What is still missing after the report, the calls, and the queries?
- How do you know you got the decision right?
- Frequently asked questions
The DAC report is open on your screen. Somewhere in the employment history block sits a line that stops the file: not eligible for rehire. The driver is in the lobby, the truck is sitting, and your recruiter wants an answer before end of day.
Here is the part that should slow you down. In 2012 HireRight Solutions paid $2.6 million to settle FTC charges that it violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act by failing to use reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of the information it provided, failing to give consumers copies of their reports, and failing to reinvestigate disputes — the first time the FTC had charged an employment background screening firm under the FCRA (FTC, August 8, 2012). The company did not admit liability, and that case concerned the accuracy of public-record and criminal-history data rather than the DAC employment file. The point still carries: screening records are data entry, data entry has errors, and the flag you are looking at was typed by a competitor of yours.
This article is not a definition of a DAC report. It is what you do in the next two hours.
What does “not eligible for rehire” actually prove?
It proves that one former employer typed a code into a database. Nothing more, and the federal rulebook is silent on the phrase. Read 49 CFR 391.23 end to end and you will not find “eligible for rehire” anywhere in it. What the regulation actually obligates a previous employer to hand over is narrow and factual: general driver identification and employment verification information, plus the accident data elements specified in 49 CFR 390.15(b)(1) for accidents in the three years preceding the application (49 CFR 391.23(d)). For DOT-regulated employers where the driver held a safety-sensitive job, add the drug and alcohol items in paragraph (e): violations of the part 382 subpart B or part 40 prohibitions within the previous three years, and failure to undertake or complete a substance abuse professional program.
Rehire eligibility is not on that list. It is a voluntary field a contributing carrier fills in for its own reasons, and those reasons can include a two-week notice that was actually ten days, a dispatcher who did not like the driver, or an equipment dispute that never went anywhere.
That does not make the flag worthless. It makes it a lead, not a conclusion. Treat it the way you would treat an anonymous tip: worth chasing, never worth acting on unverified.
There is one more asymmetry worth knowing. Under 49 CFR 391.23(l), a previous employer that furnishes safety performance history in accordance with the section is shielded from defamation, invasion of privacy, and interference with contract claims. That protection drops away for anyone who knowingly furnishes false information or who is not in compliance with the specified procedures. So the carrier that flagged your applicant had a legal incentive to report, and a much weaker one to be precise.
Why is the DAC report thin, blank, or flatly contradicted by the driver?
Because DAC is a member-contribution database, not a government registry. HireRight, which operates the DAC Employment History File, describes it as a driver work history database holding employment histories on terminated drivers for 2,500+ carriers and containing more than 6 million records. The stored fields include period of service, equipment operated, reason for leaving and rehire eligibility, and members “earn credit for termination records contributed” (HireRight). Read that mechanism carefully and three practical consequences fall out.
One: non-members are invisible. A driver who spent four years at a 30-truck outfit that never joined has four years of nothing. The file does not say “no data available for this employer.” It just skips forward.
Two: the flag is unilateral. The entry is written by the former employer, and no federal rule requires that employer to notify the driver before contributing it or to reconcile it against payroll or the accident register. The correction machinery in 49 CFR 391.23(j) exists precisely because unverified entries get filed.
Three: silence is the default state. When a DAC comes back with two employers listed and the application shows five, you have not learned that three employers were clean. You have learned that three employers do not participate. That is a gap the paid report structurally cannot close, and it is why a supplementary behavioral layer like cdlscan exists: any carrier can leave a review of a driver there, not only a paying database subscriber, so the employers who never show up in DAC still leave a trace you can read.
None of that replaces the formal check. It sits next to it.
What does federal law actually let you do with a flagged report?
You may consider it, you must not stop at it, and you owe the driver a process before it costs him the job. Three separate rule sets are live the moment a flagged DAC report lands in your inbox, and they do different jobs.
| Rule | What it obligates you to do | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|
| Safety performance history investigation | Investigate safety performance history with DOT-regulated employers for the preceding 3 years under (a)(2), request the (d) items from all previous CMV employers in that period, and document every contact or attempt | 49 CFR 391.23(a)(2), (c)(2), (d) |
| Driver due process notice | Tell the driver in writing, before any hiring decision, that he may review, correct, and rebut what previous employers sent | 49 CFR 391.23(i)(1) |
| Clearinghouse pre-employment query | Run a full query before letting the driver perform a safety-sensitive function | 49 CFR 382.701(a) |
| FCRA disclosure and authorization | Standalone written disclosure and written authorization before pulling the report, with a modified route for drivers who applied remotely | 15 U.S.C. 1681b(b)(2), FTC guidance |
| FCRA adverse action | Give the driver the report and a summary of rights before you reject him, or use the trucking-specific 3 business day route | 15 U.S.C. 1681b(b)(3) |
| Investigation file retention | Keep the safety performance histories for as long as the driver is employed and 3 years after | 49 CFR 391.53(c) |
Two of those deserve emphasis because they are where carriers get hurt.
The 391.23 investigation is a process obligation, not a purchase. Paragraph (c)(2) says the investigation may consist of personal interviews, telephone interviews, letters, or any other method the carrier deems appropriate, and then requires a written record for each previous employer contacted, including the employer’s name and address, the date contacted or attempted, and the information received. Failures to reach an employer, and failures by that employer to respond, must be documented. A DAC printout in the file with no call log behind it does not satisfy that. It is evidence you bought a report.
The clock is 30 days from the start of employment, and driver due process does not eat into it. Under 391.23(c)(1), replies to the safety performance history investigation, or documentation of good faith efforts, go into the driver investigation history file within 30 days of the date employment begins. The regulation then says outright that any time required to exercise the driver’s rights to review the information and request correction or rebuttal is separate and apart from that 30-day requirement. You do not get to run the clock down while a dispute is open, and you do not have to.
How do you work a flagged DAC report, step by step?
| Step | What you do | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Split the report into facts and characterizations | Smart |
| 2 | Run and document your own 391.23 investigation | Required |
| 3 | Put the record in front of the driver | Required |
| 4 | Corroborate against MVR, PSP, and the Clearinghouse | Required in part |
| 5 | If you are leaning no, run the FCRA adverse action sequence | Required |
| 6 | Close the driver investigation history file properly | Required |
Split the report into facts and characterizations
What you do: run two columns. On the left, everything a third party could independently verify: employment dates, position, DOT-recordable accidents with dates, drug and alcohol testing outcomes. On the right, everything that reflects a judgment: reason for leaving, rehire eligibility, work history commentary. Decide the file on the left column and use the right column only to generate questions.
Status: smart practice, not a regulation.
The gotcha: the two columns are printed in the same font, side by side, under the same employer heading. Recruiters read the flag first and then read every verifiable fact through it. Physically separate them before you form an opinion, or you will confirm the flag rather than test it.
Run and document your own 391.23 investigation
What you do: contact every previous employer that employed the driver to operate a CMV in the previous three years — not only the DOT-regulated ones — with specific return contact information, as 49 CFR 391.23(d) requires. The request itself may be a call or a letter; what must be written is your record of it under (c)(2). The paragraph (e) drug and alcohol items are the narrower set: those go only to previous DOT-regulated employers where the job was safety-sensitive. Ask for the paragraph (d) and (e) items by name. Log the employer’s name and address, the date of each contact or attempt, and exactly what came back. If the flagging carrier is one of those employers, you now have a direct channel to ask what the flag was for.
Status: required. Previous employers must respond within 30 days of receiving the request, and must respond even when there is nothing to report, confirming the non-existence of data along with identification and dates of employment (391.23(g)(1)).
The gotcha: a previous employer that stonewalls is not your problem to absorb quietly. Under 391.23(c)(3), prospective employers should report failures of previous employers to respond to FMCSA using the complaint procedures at 49 CFR 386.12, and keep a copy of that report in the driver investigation history file as part of documenting good faith. That copy is what turns “we could not reach them” into a defensible record at audit.
Put the record in front of the driver
What you do: hand over what previous employers actually sent, and confirm that your application packet already carried the required notice. Under 391.23(i)(1), for any driver with DOT-regulated employment in the preceding three years you must expressly notify him in writing, via the application form or another document and before any hiring decision, of three rights: to review information provided by previous employers, to have errors corrected by that employer and re-sent to you, and to attach a rebuttal statement if the driver and the former employer cannot agree.
Status: required.
The gotcha: the response deadline is short and it is yours. When the driver submits a written request, you must provide the information within five business days of receiving it, or within five business days of receiving the previous employer’s response if it has not arrived yet (391.23(i)(2)). The driver can make that request at any time, including as late as 30 days after being employed or being notified of denial of employment. A rejected applicant can come back and ask three weeks later, and the clock still runs.
Corroborate against MVR, PSP, and the Clearinghouse
What you do: pull the records that are not built on voluntary contribution. The MVR inquiry to every state where the driver held a license in the preceding three years is required within 30 days of the date employment begins, covering the prior three-year driving history (391.23(a)(1), (b)). The Clearinghouse full pre-employment query is required before the driver performs a safety-sensitive function (49 CFR 382.701(a)). PSP gives you roadside inspection and crash data straight from FMCSA systems: it draws on the MCMIS extract, five years of crash data and three years of inspection data. Note that PSP is not a records pull you can make on your own initiative — it requires the driver’s separate written consent before you request it, and if a PSP report contributes to a no-hire, the Step 5 FCRA sequence applies to it too (DOT).
Status: required for MVR and Clearinghouse. PSP is optional but it is the fastest way to test whether a “safety issues” characterization has any roadside footprint behind it.
The gotcha: these records answer different questions and people blur them. Our walkthroughs on reading a PSP report and running the MVR check go section by section. One Clearinghouse detail is easy to miss: if any reportable information is entered about the driver during the 30-day period immediately following your query, FMCSA notifies you (382.701(c)). A clean query today is not a clean query forever, and the annual query obligation in 382.701(b) is separate.
If you are leaning no, run the FCRA adverse action sequence
What you do: decide which of the two routes applies to you before you send anything. In the ordinary route, before you reject the applicant based in whole or in part on the report, you give him a copy of the consumer report you relied on and a copy of A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, then let him respond (FTC). Afterward you send the adverse action notice naming the reporting company, stating that it did not make the decision and cannot explain it, and telling the driver he may dispute the information and get an additional free report if he asks within 60 days.
Status: required.
The gotcha: trucking has its own carve-out and most carriers either ignore it or over-apply it. Under 15 U.S.C. 1681b(b)(3)(B), where a driver applied by mail, telephone, computer or similar means, you may, in lieu of both the pre-adverse action package and the separate 15 U.S.C. 1681m(a) adverse action notice, send an oral, written or electronic notification within 3 business days of taking the action, containing four elements: that adverse action was taken based on a consumer report, the name, address and telephone number of the reporting agency, that the agency did not make the decision and cannot give reasons, and that the driver may request a free copy and dispute the report. If he then asks for the report, you have another 3 business days to send it with the summary of rights. The trap is subparagraph (C), which sets two conditions and both must hold. First, the position must be one over which the Secretary of Transportation has power under 49 U.S.C. 31502, or one subject to state transportation safety regulation — a driving job, not every job at a carrier, so your office staff and shop mechanics are outside this route. Second, at the time you procured the report, the only interaction between you and the applicant had been by mail, telephone, computer or similar means. The moment he walked into your office for an interview before you pulled the report, you are back on the standard route.
Close the driver investigation history file properly
What you do: file the responses, the call log, any FMCSA non-response complaint, the driver’s correction request or rebuttal if there was one, and the driver’s written authorization for the alcohol and controlled substances inquiry required under 391.23(f)(1). Keep the file in a secure location with controlled access, limited to people involved in the hiring decision or who control access, and use the data only for the hiring decision (49 CFR 391.53(a)).
Status: required.
The gotcha: retention is longer than most people assume. Safety performance histories for a driver you hire must be retained for as long as the driver is employed and for three years after (391.53(c)). And if the driver files a rebuttal, the previous employer has five business days to forward a copy to you and must append it to its own file for the duration of the three-year data retention requirement (391.23(j)(4)). A previous employer that refuses to correct must tell the driver so within 15 days of the request (391.23(j)(2)). Those dates belong in your notes, because they are how you show a decision was made on a complete record rather than a first impression.
Two ways the same file gets closed
The difference between an audit finding and a clean file is usually one afternoon of process.
The version that costs you. DAC comes back with a rehire flag. The recruiter marks the applicant “DNH,” pastes the DAC PDF into the DQ folder, and moves on. Nothing else is in the file. Three weeks after the denial the driver requests the previous employer information under 391.23(i)(2), well inside the window that paragraph gives him, and there is nothing to give him because nobody ever ran the investigation. No adverse action notice went out. The only document justifying the decision is a third party’s unverified opinion, and there is no record that any previous employer was contacted at all.
The version that holds. The same flag lands. The recruiter opens a contact log, sends written 391.23(d) and (e) requests to all three previous CMV employers from the last three years, and calls the flagging carrier. The safety manager learns the flag was a load abandonment. PSP shows no roadside pattern; the MVR is clean; the Clearinghouse query comes back with no prohibition. The driver is shown the previous employer information and files a rebuttal describing an unpaid detention dispute, which the former carrier forwards within five business days. The carrier still declines to hire, sends the 1681b(b)(3)(B) notice within three business days because the applicant had only ever applied online, and files everything. Same outcome, defensible record, and the decision rested on a verified event rather than a checkbox.
What is still missing after the report, the calls, and the queries?
The behavior of the drivers nobody wrote up. Work the whole procedure above and you still have a structural hole: everything you gathered came from carriers that either subscribe to a database or answer their mail. The FMCSA-mandated response duty in 391.23(g)(1) is real, but the enforcement route for a non-response is a complaint to FMCSA under 386.12, which does not help you today. And the DAC contribution model means a non-member’s four years with your applicant simply do not exist as data.
That gap is not about compliance. It is about the part of the decision compliance was never designed to make: whether this driver shows up, communicates, treats equipment like it costs money, and stays past the second pay cycle. None of that is a reportable event. There is no field for it in the safety performance history, and a former employer who thought the driver was a headache but had nothing recordable to point at will send you a clean response, honestly.
This is where a first-party behavioral layer earns its place. Carrier-written driver reviews on cdlscan come from any carrier willing to write one, not only from paying members of a screening database, which means the employers invisible to DAC can still tell you something. When a DAC flag and a driver’s account point in opposite directions, an independent set of observations from other carriers is often what breaks the tie. Make the calls 391.23(d) requires first, then look the driver up — the behavioral layer sits on top of the required contacts, never instead of one of them.
Say the boundary plainly: this is an additional layer of evidence. It does not satisfy 49 CFR 391.23, it is not a substitute for the consumer report or the 391.23 investigation, and it replaces nothing in the formal process. If you intend to rely on any third-party information as a factor in a hiring decision, confirm with counsel which FCRA obligations attach. Run the required check exactly as written, then use the behavioral layer to decide the things the required check was never built to answer.
How do you know you got the decision right?
Test the file, not the outcome. Before you sign off, six things should be true.
- Every previous employer that put the driver in a CMV in the last three years appears in a written contact log with a date and an outcome, including the ones that never answered.
- Any characterization that influenced the decision, rehire flags included, is backed by a verifiable fact from a second source, or was explicitly set aside.
- The driver received the 391.23(i)(1) rights notice before the decision, and any review request was answered within five business days.
- The MVR and Clearinghouse pre-employment query are in the file, dated.
- If the answer was no and the report contributed to it, the correct FCRA route was used and the notice date is recorded.
- The whole package sits in a secure, access-controlled driver investigation history file with the retention clock understood.
If a file fails on the first or the last line, fix the process, not the file. Those two failures repeat across every applicant. For the upstream paperwork that feeds all of this, see our breakdown of the 391.21 driver application, and for how these decisions eventually show up in your scores, the CSA methodology walkthrough.
Frequently asked questions
Can I refuse to hire a driver because of a DAC report?
Yes, subject to the FCRA. Nothing in the FMCSRs prohibits declining an applicant based on information in a screening report. But if the report contributed in whole or in part to the decision, 15 U.S.C. 1681b(b)(3) applies, and you owe either the standard pre-adverse action package or, for drivers who applied remotely, the trucking notice within three business days.
Does a DAC report satisfy the 391.23 previous employer investigation?
No. 49 CFR 391.23(c)(2) requires a written record for each previous employer contacted, including name, address, date of contact or attempt, and the information received, and requires that failures to make contact be documented. A purchased report contains none of that. It can support the investigation; it cannot be the investigation.
What should I do if the DAC report comes back empty?
Treat it as no information rather than good information. DAC is built from records submitted by participating members, so an employer that does not subscribe leaves no entry. Run the 391.23 investigation against the employers listed on the application itself, and document every attempt, including the ones that go unanswered.
Can I hire the driver while a DAC dispute is still open?
Yes. 49 CFR 391.23(c)(1) states that any period needed for the driver to exercise review, correction or rebuttal rights is separate and apart from the 30-day requirement to document the safety performance history investigation. Your obligation is to document the investigation and the pending dispute, not to freeze the hire until it resolves.
How long does the carrier have to respond to a driver who disputes what we were sent?
The previous employer that furnished the data carries that duty, not you. Under 49 CFR 391.23(j)(2) it must either correct and forward the information or notify the driver within 15 days that it does not agree to correct. If the driver files a rebuttal instead, the previous employer has five business days to forward a copy to you and must append it to its file for the three-year retention period.
Can I act on a seven-year-old entry in a screening report?
Check its age against 15 U.S.C. 1681c(a), which generally bars a consumer reporting agency from reporting adverse items older than seven years, with longer windows for bankruptcies and none for criminal convictions. The statute lifts those limits for a consumer credit report tied to a job paying $75,000 or more (1681c(b)(3)) — whether that reaches a non-credit driver file is unsettled, so confirm the current rule with counsel. Plain employment dates are not adverse items and can appear beyond the window.
Who inside my company is allowed to see the DAC report and the investigation file?
Only people involved in the hiring decision or who control access to the data. 49 CFR 391.53(a) requires the driver investigation history file to be kept in a secure location with controlled access and used only for the hiring decision. Your insurer may access the file, except for the alcohol and controlled substances data, and 391.23(k)(2) bars you from giving that data to your insurer at all.
How long do I have to keep all of this?
For a driver you hire, the safety performance histories received from previous employers must be retained for as long as the driver is employed and for three years afterward (49 CFR 391.53(c)). Clearinghouse query records must be retained for three years (49 CFR 382.701(e)), and the accident register runs three years from the date of each accident (49 CFR 390.15(b)).
This article is general information for motor carrier hiring and safety staff, not legal advice. Federal regulations and their interpretations change. Verify the current text of any section on ecfr.gov and consult counsel before building a screening policy on it. Last reviewed 2026-07.